


All the Right Reasons Were Wrong All Along

by Moons-and-Glassware (PorcelainCas)



Series: dreamt hope [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Book 4: House of Hades, Canon Compliant, F/M, First Kiss, POV Calypso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 19:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3352880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcelainCas/pseuds/Moons-and-Glassware
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling in doomed love over and over again is Calypso's curse, until a strange demigod with an attitude problem lands on Ogygia and makes her realize the loophole in her curse she kept missing... Because all the right reasons for falling in love with those heroes seemed to be wrong all along, and maybe Leo Valdez is the hero she's been waiting for...</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Right Reasons Were Wrong All Along

**Author's Note:**

> first published November 2013 on FF.net

When Percy Jackson told Calypso that he couldn’t stay with her forever, it broke her heart. Again.

It had been years since the gods had so pleasantly dropped off another hero in Ogygia to breath Calypso’s heart without intention. After Odysseus with Penelope came Drake. And after Drake with Elizabeth came Percy. After Percy with Annabeth? Well she’d say she would probably have to wait another century or so before a hero was dropped onto her island. She was sure she had plenty of time to bottle that resentment down. She was sure that she would be able to let all that anger and venom slip into a ghost of her past, just like her old flames.

Calypso  _knew_  that Percy wouldn’t stay. She had promised herself not to offer. After all, asking him that was just setting herself up for heartbreak. But when she finally admitted her resolve to Percy, illusions of hope came fluttering in.

_“But...my friends.”_

It was then that a part of her started to grasp on to that false hope. She thought that she might be able to change his mind. This war that was going on—what difference would one less demigod make? They could stay on Ogygia forever, and Calypso would never be brokenhearted ever again. It was a perfect fantasy that could be lived out on this peaceful island forever. She would never have to fear falling in love with the next hero that washed up ashore. Instead, she and Percy would live happily ever after. Calypso could see it playing all out in her mind.

For one moment, Calypso could see him considering it, weighing all possibilities and choices. She hoped desperately that he would stay, but in the end she had already expected his answer.

_“I can’t.”_

And so he left, never to return again.

If Calypso could put blame on anyone for this, it would be Hephaestus. He had interrupted them right before she could tell him about her offer. He was bound to leave after such grave news about the Titan War. Of course, he also had to return to his beloved Annabeth. All the heroes that she met already found their missing half. Calypso became nothing more than just a Titan imprisoned on an island set to detain heroes from their ultimate goal.

The year after Percy’s departure, these thoughts finally began to sink it. Calypso was always bitter during the first few years after someone left the island. To keep herself from drowning in her sorrow, she buried herself in little tasks, never resurfacing long enough to let the full blunt of the pain overtake her.

Except when she began to allow herself to think about him, she felt a tiny sprout of hatred and bitterness. The gods had forgotten to release her from Ogygia after the Titan War. It was out of that venom which she wished that Annabeth would know what it felt like to be abandoned by her love. A certain kind of satisfaction came out of it, but it left as soon as it came. Eventually, she forced herself to keep on going. She had survived three heartbreaks. It would be another century or so before the gods sent her another castaway demigod. She was going to be fine.

Of course, nothing  _ever_ went right with the Olympian gods.

* * *

 

Calypso had been setting up her dining table from the beach when she heard an odd whirling noise from above. She glanced up in the direction of the noise just in time to see something burst—no,  _explode_  into flames above her island and shoot straight towards her dining table before it split into a smaller bolt of fire that diverted another way. Calypso moved away from the fire immediately, letting it crash into her dining table with a loud  _KA BOOM!_

Thankfully, Calypso had moved far enough away so that she wouldn’t be crushed by some glowing flaming sphere that seemed to click indignantly at Calypso. She took a few deep breath, trying to process exactly what had just happened. By that time, someone—a boy perhaps, was struggling towards the eight feet deep crater where the sphere had landed.

She blinked a few times in surprise. It was a demigod. Of course it was a demigod, and of all the demigods to land on her island, this had to take the prize for the most ostentatious entrance. Even Percy, who had apparently blown up a volcano before he landed, wasn’t even this extravagant. The smoke cleared, and she took in the ragged appearance of the hero before her.

At first, she didn’t really know what to make out of the hero—he  _was_ a demigod, right? Calypso’s first thought was  _He looks nothing like what a hero is supposed to look like._

All heroes that had landed on Ogygia had been well filled out with nicely defined muscles. Though Percy may have been modest about it, Calypso could definitely seen the strong build on him.

It was  _not_ the case for this newcomer. His clothes smoking and covered in dust and sand, he looked nothing more than a scrawny little imp with slightly darker complexion than the heroes she was familiar with. Calypso wondered briefly what had happened those few years (was it years? She couldn’t remember anymore) since Percy left Ogygia. Certainly things were different outside now. Maybe even more different than how Percy described it (apartments and Manhattan?). Except she was sure that it wasn’t as different as the last time she had checked. She was still imprisoned on Ogygia after all.

The demigod (Calypso refused to call him ‘hero’. It would mean acknowledging that he was the next Percy in her life, which would  _definitely_ not happen) spotted the sphere in the crater almost immediately after scanning the area quickly (managing to  _completely_ miss Calypso). “Sphere!” the demigod cried out gleefully. “Come to Papa!”

Calypso figured that he was probably going to be the strangest demigod that ever landed on her island, and Drake the pirate was  _plenty_ strange. She also figured that she didn’t want him on the island any more than he wanted to stay. Heroes that washed up (or exploded) on her island always left. This would be the first time Calypso would be glad to call the magical raft to take him far, far away from her.

He skidded down the crater and scooped the sphere up in his hands before cradling it like it was his child. Running his hands on the surface of the sphere, he seemed to be deep in thought. It was then that Calypso became aware of herself just staring at him as if he had, pun intended, come from another world.

The words found their way to Calypso. When a hero landed on Ogygia, she would usually offer them kind words and a home. But that was when she fell in love with them at first sight. With this demigod? The first words that came out were, “What are you  _doing?_ You blew up my dining table!”

He turned around to shoot her a narrowed look. It was dismissive and irritated, and that made Calypso feel angry. Demigods these days! “Oh, I’m sorry!” he said, sarcasm so clear in his voice that even a goddess trapped on an island for the better part of humanity could hear it. “I just fell out of the sky. I constructed a helicopter in midair, burst into flames halfway down, crash-landed, and barely survived. But by all means—let’s talk about your dining table!” He grabbed something melted that faintly resembled a goblet. “Who puts a dining table on the beach where innocent demigods can crash into it? Who  _does_ that?”

Calypso clenched her fist, barely able to control the anger that had been eating away at her for months since Percy left. She had thought she pushed all those emotions away, but now it was coming back. What was worse was this insolent child of a demigod spouting sarcastic insults about her dining table right after said demigod destroyed the dining table. And what was worse?

She was supposed to  _fall in love with him_. He was a demigod who landed on her island after all. Demigod equals hero. Hero on Ogygia equals destined to break Calypso’s heart. Hidden premise? Calypso had to fall in love in order for him to break her heart.

This was giving her an anger-induced headache.

“REALLY?” she screamed at the sky, unable to control it anymore. All the bottled up resentment and anger burst through the glass walls she had tried to hold them back in. Now she was destined to fall in love with  _this_ demigod? Did the gods think it was  _funny?_ Well if Calypso ever got off this island, she’d consider showing them how  _funny_ and _hilarious_ it would be when she exacted her raging emotions’ vengeance on them. “You want to make my curse even  _worse?_ Zeus! Hephaestus! Hermes! Have you no shame?”

“Uh...,” the demigod began somewhat hesitantly. He looked a little worried for her sanity which was no surprise. “I doubt they’re listening. You know, the whole split personality thing—” Calypso wasn’t even listening anymore.

“Show yourself!” Calypso yelled at the sky. “It’s not bad enough you take away the few  _good_ heroes I’m allowed to meet? You think it’s funny to send me this—,” she barely even knew how to describe him, “—this charbroiled runt of a boy to ruin my tranquility? This is NOT FUNNY! Take him back!” She was never a blunt person, but the gods were driving her crazy nowadays.

“Hey, Sunshine,” the demigod said. Great, now they were talking  _nicknames?_ Calypso would fry him on the spot if she actually could. “I’m right here, you know.”

Calypso growled at him. “Do  _not_ call me Sunshine! Get out of that hole and come with me  _now_  so I can get you off my island!” Calypso could barely remember being so hostile to others before, especially demigods that appeared on Ogygia, but this was just taking it too far. If the gods were having fun laughing at her in Olympus, so be it. All Calypso wanted was to be left alone for another century or so and wait for a  _real_ hero to show up again to break her heart.

Once the demigod climbed out of that awful hole he had created, Calypso marched down to the shoreline where the hero must have landed. She gestured to it. “This was a pristine beach! Look at it now.” No hero had ever caused such havoc when they landed. This was surely a sign that this demigod was an accident. Yes, that was it. An accident. Then she could send him off and be alone in peace again. That was a wonderful, if fleeting, thought.

“Yeah, my bad,” the demigod muttered. “I should’ve crashed on one of the other islands. Oh, wait—there aren’t any!”

Sarcasm again. Calypso snarled at him before continuing her way along the edge of the water. He was making it sound like it was all her fault for him landing here. Well, she didn’t even want him on her island in the first place! Maybe he should have thought about where he landed before he started complaining about it!

Calypso stopped walking and the demigod bumped into her. “Gah!” She steadied him before he could fall into the surf. She glared into his brown eyes. He blinked once, seeming surprised at something. Pushing him away from her, she said, “All right. This spot is good. Now tell me you want to leave.” Her temper had started to leave her. She would be rid of this nuisance in a minute. And the best part? She could watch the raft sail away while feeling nothing more than satisfaction and relief instead of crippling heartbreak.

He blinked again. “What?” She fought the urge to let out a huff of annoyance. Did he not hear her the first time?

“Do you want to  _leave?_ Surely you’ve got somewhere to go!” Calypso felt bitterness resonate within her when she said that last bit. They always had some place to go to. To save the world. To return to their true love (that  _wasn’t_ Calypso). To return to a raging war. Whatever the case, they always had to leave.

At least she wouldn’t care about this one. Instead of being ‘the fourth hero who broke my heart’, he would be known as ‘the hero who crash landed, made annoyingly sarcastic remarks, and got on my nerves’.

“Uh...yeah,” the demigod began, purpose beginning to flood his mind again. “My friends are in trouble.”  _Girlfriend too, probably._ ”I need to get back to my ship and—”

Calypso cut him off. Even though she didn’t really care, she didn’t want to hear about the girl that he loved being in danger unless he dashed in to save her just in time. “Fine. Just say,  _I want to leave Ogygia._ ”

“Uh, okay,” the demigod said, his tone seeming slightly hurt. “I want to leave—whatever you said.”

Calypso tried not to get impatient with him, but she really couldn’t help it. “Oh-gee-gee-ah,” Calypso said slowly while emphasizing each syllable. She didn’t want to repeat it again. What was so hard about pronouncing it?

“I want to leave,” he began, then flashing her a quick hesitant look, “Oh-gee-gee-ah,” he said slowly, making sure to pronounce it correctly.

Calypso let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Thank the gods. She was free again. She could finally breathe again with feeling like destroying something. “Good. In a moment, a magical raft will appear. It will take you wherever you want to go.”

The demigod squinted at her. “Who  _are_ you?”

Her name was on the tip of her tongue until she realized that this was a story going to be passed around. She didn’t want anyone knowing that she had lost her grip on her own emotions and yelled at a demigod. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be gone soon. You’re obviously a mistake.” Because Calypso did  _not_ fall for scrawny boy-demigods with a bad attitude.

The demigod’s expression betrayed him for a split second. His eyebrows scrunched up in something that looked like hurt and dejection all mixed together with familiarity. Then it was gone, and he scanned the ocean while seeming deep in thought.

Calypso looked away. That expression reminded her of Percy. She stared out into the water, waiting for the raft to appear and take the burden away from her.

It still wasn’t here.

“Any moment now...,” Calypso said, but there was hesitation. The raft only appeared for the heroes that she liked... No. She didn’t know if that was true. She just never had a hero she didn’t like land on Ogygia. The raft would appear. It always did. He’d have to get off somehow. He  _had_ to get off. Calypso didn’t want to be stuck with some runt of a demigod forever. Oh gods.

“Maybe it got stuck in traffic,” the demigod said after a while of silence between them.

“This is wrong.” No, no, no. He could  _not_ be stuck here forever. Calypso glared at the sky. “This is completely wrong!” What, now they wanted to laugh some more? Newsflash: Calypso’s life was  _not_ one of their stupid reality shows they held in Olympus that Hermes talked about. She could already imagine it now.  _Tune in every day to watch new hit series Calypso and the Demigod! Only on Channel Olympus!_

“So...plan B? You got a phone, or—”

“Agh!” Calypso couldn’t take it anymore. So she ran straight back home in hopes that he wouldn’t follow her.

But of course he would follow her. Because that’s what all the heroes did.  _Follow the Titan in distress._ Like that was ever a good idea. But what could Calypso do? Avoidance was great at preventing the inevitable.  _Like she would ever fall in love with a demigod like him._ They’d be stuck on Ogygia together forever.

That was a horrible thought.

* * *

 

“Holy Hephaetus,” the demigod said.

When he finally reached her, she had her back to him in her vegetable garden. She was cursing the gods, the Fates, the whoever else was horrible enough to watch this reality show, in Ancient Greek the entire time. Soil had made its way to her arms, legs, and her dress, but she couldn’t care less. The one demigod that she wanted to leave happened to be the one demigod who couldn’t! What jokes were the Fates playing on her this time? It wasn’t even funny anymore. Did they hear her or should she shout at the sky again?  _It’s not funny anymore!_

“I think you’ve punished that dirt enough,” the demigod said when he finally reached her.

She scowled. “Just go away.” It wasn’t funny. It was far from funny. That was when she realized that tears were streaking down her cheeks. That was further proof that it wasn’t funny.

“You’re crying,” the demigod stated not unkindly, but more in a surprised ‘I didn’t know immortals cried’ kind of way. Well with Calypso’s life, tears were usually a daily thing.

“None of your business,” Calypso muttered, finding that all the anger had left her emotionally drained. The walls that she had broken down were still blown open, and the tears were just a consequence of that. These were the tears of frustration, hurt, and abandonment. She didn’t want to think about it any further. “It’s a big island,” she offered. “Just...find your own place. Leave me alone.” She motioned in a random direction  _away_ from her (because that was all that mattered). “Go that way, maybe.”

He hesitated, shifting his weight from feet to feet. “So, no magic raft. No other way off the island?”

Did he not understand the first time? Were demigods getting dimmer and duller as time passed? “Apparently not!” Why was he even sticking around anyway?

“What am I supposed to do, then? Sit in the sand dunes until I die?”

Calypso considered it for a while. “That would be fine...” It sounded wonderful, actually. Wait a second. When the realization hit her, she threw the trowel she was holding onto the ground. “Except I suppose he  _can’t_ die here. can he? Zeus! This is not funny!” No matter how many times she said that, she knew that they weren’t going to pop up to bring the mistake away. Nope, Calypso was pretty sure she was stuck with him. For a long time.

Gears were turning in the demigod’s head. “Hold up. I’m going to need some more information here. You don’t want me in your face, that’s cool.” Not  _wanting_  him in her face? Talk about the understatement of the century. “I don’t want to be here either. But I’m not going to go die in a corner.” Pity, that would have been a lot easier for Calypso if that were the case. “I have to get off this island. There’s  _got_ to be a way. Every problem has a fix.”

Calypso laughed at that. If every problem had a fix, then why was she still on Ogygia pining after hopeless loves? From the way he spoke of this, Calypso figured that he was definitely one of Hephaestus’s sons which she found kind of ironic. The last time she had seen him, he had taken Percy away. Well, he hadn’t actually taken Percy away, but he might as well have.

Whoever set this reality show up had a seriously twisted mind.

“You haven’t lived very long, if you still believe that.”

The demigod looked slightly perturbed by her words but didn’t seem very deterred by it. “You said something about a curse,” he mentioned.

Calypso flexed her fingers, trying not to strangle the demigod on the spot. Did he have to be so curious? Well, it was better to answer him now before he started snooping around in search for answers to sate his own curiosity. “Yes. I cannot leave Ogygia. My father, Atlas, fought against the gods, and I supported him.”

“Atlas,” the demigod echoed distantly. “As in the  _Titan_ Atlas?”

Calypso rolled her eyes; who else would it be? “Yes, you impossible little...” She managed to bite back an insult. “I was imprisoned here, where I could cause the Olympians no trouble. About a year ago, after the Second Titan War, the gods vowed to forgive their enemies and offer amnesty. Supposedly Percy made them promise—” She was getting too lost in memories but luckily, before she could ramble any further, the demigod cut her off.

“Percy. Percy Jackson?”

Of all the demigods who had to land on her island, it had to be one who knew her most recent flame. She squeezed her eyes shut, and a tear trickled down her cheek. She hadn’t realized how much hearing his full name hurt. The fact that it came from someone else’s lips made it that much worse. Some part of her had kept Percy’s memory as hers and hers only. The fact that he didn’t really belong to her stung in her heart.

“Percy came here,” the demigod concluded more softly than before. She could hear the pity in his voice.

“I—I thought I would be released. I dared to hope...but I am still here.” Because the gods were just so caught up in their own problems that they didn’t even give reprieve to a poor girl in love.

“You’re that lady,” the demigod said suddenly after a moment of silence. Calypso’s heart gave a jolt at this. Did Percy talk about her? And here she had thought he’d gone and forgotten her! Then the demigod went on to ruin the mood by saying, “The one who was named after Carribbean music.”

Was he serious? She glared at him. “Caribbean music.” Did he honestly have nothing decent to say?

“Yeah. Reggae?” She was about two seconds from strangling him now. “Merengue? Hold on, I’ll get it.” Scratch that, she was going to strangle him right now. “Calypso!” he finally said. Her heart gave a sudden jolt when he said her name, but she wasn’t quite sure why. “But Percy said you were awesome. He said you were all sweet and helpful, not, um...,” the demigod trailed off awkwardly.

So Percy had talked about her! She shot to her feet, wondering what this demigod’s impression of her was. “Yes?”

“Uh, nothing,” he mumbled.

“Would you be  _sweet_ if the gods forgot their promise to let you go? Would you be sweet if they  _laughed_ at you by sending another hero, but a hero who looked like—” she couldn’t find a good way to phrase his un-hero-like looks, “—like  _you?_ ”

The demigod didn’t look surprised by her analysis of him. Instead, he frowned slightly. “Is that supposed to be a trick question?”

Obviously this demigod was not the smartest of the bunch. “ _Di Immortales!_ ” She couldn’t take this anymore and marched away.

“Hey!” he called after her. Gods, couldn’t he leave her alone? It wasn’t that hard!

She was at the washbasin, cleaning the dirt from her skin when he appeared in her sight. She scowled at him but didn’t have the energy to yell at him anymore. The demigod cleared his throat. “So...I get why you’re angry. You probably never want to see another demigod again. I guess that didn’t sit right when, uh, Percy left you—”

The way he said ‘left you’ made Calypso feel impossibly small and vulnerable, which she was definitely  _not_. “He was only the latest. Before him, it was that pirate Drake. And before him, Odysseus. They were all the same! The gods send me the greatest heroes, the ones I cannot help but...”

“You fall in love with them. And then they leave you.” His tone was oddly detached with only scientific curiosity.

“That is my curse,” she admitted. “I had hoped to be free of it by now, but here I am, still stuck on Ogygia after three thousand years.”

“Three thousand,” the demigod echoed softly. “Uh, you look good for three thousand,” he said almost shyly. It was then that she remembered he was also a hero stuck on her island. And according to her curse, she was supposed to fall in love with him. With  _him_.

“And now...the worse insult of all.” Because the gods obviously didn’t think they tortured Calypso enough. “The gods mock me by sending  _you_.” She knew she was being harsh, but it was honest. He was not the typical handsome hero that Calypso usually fell in love with at first sight. He was just a boy on the cusp of adulthood. And he had too much sarcasm for her to take.

She could see the anger and hurt on his expression. “Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll leave you alone. I’ll build something myself and get off this stupid island without your help.”

Oh, if things were so simple. She shook her head sadly at his confidence. “You don’t understand, do you? The gods are laughing at both of us. If the raft will not appear, that means they’ve closed Ogygia. You’re stuck here the same as me. You can never leave.”

By the look on his face, he didn’t believe it.

* * *

 

The demigod was in denial.

“How many days has it been since I arrived?” he demanded one day, looking throughly worried.

Calypso shook her head. “Time is difficult here.”

He looked aghast at that news and didn’t speak for the remainder of the day.

Through the few days, he had been sleeping outside on a bed of drop clothes and wandering the island almost aimlessly. Calypso knew how incredibly inhospitable that was of her to not invite him in, but she couldn’t bring herself to. And she also couldn’t bring herself to starve him, so she sent meals and clothes to him. She had found out his clothing size due to investigating his memories through some magic on her part. She discovered his name was Leo Valdez, which was somewhat of a curious name.

During the few days, the demigod retreated into himself, barely speaking to her and seeming disturbed by the island. Calypso didn’t blame him. She would be feeling the exact same if she were a demigod stranded on an island with an ill-tempered Titan who knew his friend Percy in a more-than-friends way at one point.

Calypso once considered asking Leo about Percy about Annabeth. She wondered if they were still together and then dismissed the thought altogether. She didn’t need to dwell on the thoughts of him. Doing that nearly killed her the first time with Odysseus. She would  _not_ die of heartbreak because that would just amuse the gods, and she was  _not_ one of their playthings.

Then one day, Calypso realized that the bronze satyr on her fountain was now standing upright and stopped making ticking noises when it was turned on. She stared at the working fountain in surprise, knowing that Leo had fixed it somehow.

Another time, she found that the curtains at the cave entrance levelled properly. She had tried to fix it a long time ago. To make a long story short, it didn’t quite work out the way she planned. But now it was, whole and perfect like the way it was when she installed them.

Finally, her garden tools were working perfectly fine now, thanks to the demigod.

Huh, maybe having a son of Hephaestus on her island wasn’t so bad after all if he kept fixing things at this rate.

The moment she thought that, she shoved it out of her head. The faster he got off Ogygia, the better.

* * *

 

Calypso started to the sound of clanging against metal one day.

_It figures._

The son of Hephaestus seemed to have somehow found his way to Celestial bronze.

Good. It meant that he would probably build something to get off this island. No matter how cynical Calypso had been toward Leo, she knew that a son of Hephaestus probably had a really good chance of building something to get off the island.

But...a tiny part of her, just a  _tiny_  part of her regretted it.

It was probably just because she wanted him to fix everything broken of hers before he left.

And that list of broken things did  _not_ include her heart.

* * *

 

It was two days after Leo found the bronze did Calypso approach him.

At first, she wasn’t quite sure what to say. She wasn’t even sure why she came to him in the first place besides this  _instinct_ that just drew her to him. Of course, she also brought food for him. But that instinct was probably her I-must-fall-in-love-with-every-hero curse working against her. She thought it was pretty pathetic and that she should turn back, but he had already seen her.

“Smoke and fire. Clanging on metal all day long. You’re scaring away the birds!”

All right, so it wasn’t the best thing she had ever come up with, but Calypso couldn’t help the complaint. Leo seemed to bring out that part in her. There was just something about that demigod that always seemed to irk her.

“Oh, no, not the birds!” Leo mocked sarcastically, focusing back on his work again and lifting the hammer up.

“What do you hope to accomplish?” Calypso asked him.

Leo glanced up at her, nearly smashing his thumb with his hammer. He stared at her as if she were dim. “I’m  _hoping_ to get off this island,” he stated. “That is what you want, right?”

Calypso didn’t know if he was mocking her or just asking an unorthodox question. She ended up just scowling at him and saying, “You haven’t eaten in two days. Take a break and  _eat_.” She wasn’t sure where that sudden concern was coming from, but she didn’t question it much. It was probably just her caring instincts kicking up— _not_ her nonexistent feelings for Leo.

He looked surprised at this. “Two days?” He glanced at the basket of food she had placed near his bedroll. “Thanks,” he murmured quietly. “I’ll, uh, try to hammer more quietly.”

“Huh.” Like that would work. But he sounded sincere about it, and she couldn’t blame him for trying.

It was actually a little sweet, really.

* * *

 

Leo had burned through the new clothes she made him quicker than she expected. It was getting a little more than tiring to make new clothes for him every day so she decided to just give him a pair of fireproof clothing and be done with it. Except she wanted to personalize it a little—make it so they were actually clothes that he liked. She wasn’t sure why she went through this trouble, but she didn’t think about it any further than she had to. The last thing she needed to do was analyze her feelings and emotions.

She ended up creating a pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, and a jacket with odd designs on them. They were what he had been wearing the first time he entered Camp Half-Blood, according to his thoughts and memories. Along with that, she was constantly reminded every time she went harmlessly searching through that head of his that he really  _really_ liked the colour red.

The bold colour wasn’t something she had seen often on Ogygia, and she decided to try something red for a change. It  _wasn’t_  for Leo, she told herself.

Leo had his back to her when she came with his new set of clothing. “I brought you—”

Yelping, he jumped and dropped his wires. “Bronze bulls, girl! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

She was, once again, reminded of how much she  _didn’t_ like Leo. “I wasn’t  _sneaking_. I was bringing you these.” She held out the clothes in her hands toward him.

He stared at it, his eyebrows scrunching together in confusion. Then he looked back at her like he was unsteady all of a sudden. “How?”

Leo wasn’t taking the clothes, so Calypso placed it at his feet and backed away from him. “I do have a little magic, you know. You keep burning through the clothes I give you, so I thought I would weave something less flammable.”

He picked up the jeans hesitantly. “They won’t burn?” he asked her like he hadn’t heard the first time. She tried not to roll her eyes.

“They are completely fireproof,” she assured him. “They’ll stay clean and expand to fit you,” she said, then quickly adding, “should you ever become less scrawny.” Because she did  _not_ like him. Not at all.

“Thanks,” he said, and to her surprise, he sounded impressed and sincere despite her snip a him. “So...you made an exact replica of my favourite outfit. Did you, like, Google me or something?”

Leo had used plenty of foreign words during his time on Ogygia, but definitely none so direct and foreign as this. “I don’t know that word,” Calypso admitted.

“You looked me up,” Leo explained. “Almost like you had some some interest in me.”

Calypso wrinkled her nose at the thought. That was wishful thinking on Leo’s part. “I have an interest in not making you a new set of clothes every other day. I have an interest in your not smelling so bad and walking around my island in smoldering rags.” That tiny little rant made Calypso feel a little better about herself. Until Leo spoke again:

“Oh yeah. You’re really warming up to me.” He flashed her a cheeky grin.

It was a joke, of course. She already knew how foolish Leo could be, but she couldn’t help the blush that spread across her cheeks. “You are the most insufferable person I have ever met! I was only returning a favour. You fixed my fountain.” She wasn’t sure where that came from, but that was the first thought that entered her head.

Leo laughed. “That? That was no big deal. I don’t like it when things don’t work right.”

“And the curtains across the cave entrance?” Calypso found herself saying before she could stop.

“The rod wasn’t level,” he said like it was the simplest thing in the world, which Calypso suppose it was for a son of Hephaestus.

“And my gardening tools?”

“Look, I just sharpened the shears. Cutting vines with a dull blade is dangerous. And the pruners need to be oiled at the hinge, and—”

Calypso wasn’t sure what she said what she did. She knew that he was going to go off on the technicalities if she let him, but she felt like barely had control over her next words. “Oh yeah,” Calypso said, imitating Leo’s voice. “You’re really warming up to me.”

Leo stared at her speechlessly. The expression was so funny that she stopped regretting her words. He didn’t seem like a demigod who could be easily rendered speechless.

“What are you building?” Calypso pointed at his worktable, genuinely curious and moving the conversation  _away_ from where she had suddenly brought it.

“Oh,” Leo said, stumbling out of his haze. “Uh, it’s a seeing device. We found one like this in Rome, in the workshop of Archimedes. If I can make it work, maybe I can find out what’s going on with my friends.”

He had confidence, but that alone wouldn’t work. “That’s impossible. This island is hidden, cut off from the world by strong magic. Time doesn’t even flow the same here.” She knew she sounded horribly cynical, but she was being honest.

“Well, you’ve got to have some kind of outside contact. How did you find out that I used to wear an army jacket?” He was in denial, again.

Calypso twisted her hair nervously. She wasn’t exactly sure how he would react. She knew that demigods were overly protective of the things that went on in their memories and heads. “Seeing the past is simple magic. Seeing the present or the future—that is not,” she said, choosing her words cautiously.

“Yeah, well, watch and learn, Sunshine.” Did she tell him not to call her that? Surprisingly, the nickname didn’t annoy her  _as_ much anymore. “I just connect these last two wires and—”

Leo’s shirt caught on fire from the spark that billowed smoke on the bronze plates. He pulled if off quickly like he had practice doing it, threw it down, and stomped the fire out. Calypso tried not to laugh. He was the oddest demigod that she had ever met.

And, actually, somehow the funniest, though annoying.

“Not a word,” Leo warned her when he saw that she was trying not to laugh, but she could hear the joke in his tone that said he wasn’t serious.

She glanced at his bare chest that was littered with working scars. It was unlike the chiseled perfection of the other heroes that had landed on Ogygia. Different. She felt a sudden flutter in her stomach that she quickly pushed away. “Not worth commenting on. If you want that device to work, perhaps you should try a musical invocation,” she offered.

“Right,” he drew out. “Whenever an engine malfunctions, I like to tap-dance around it. Works every time.”

She tried not to make a snappy remark at that. Instead, she took a deep breath and began to sing, weaving in her magic easily along with the tone of the sound. Leo stared straight at her, seeing but not seeing her at the same time. His eyes were glazed over and mouth slightly agape, lost in the drifting memories of his childhood no doubt.

Calypso stopped after a while. “Any luck?” she asked him.

He seemed to snap back to attention. “Uh... Nothing. Wait...”

Then the machine glowed, and the mirror came to life.

It was Camp Half-Blood and the demigods seemed to be preparing for war, from the looks of it. “Your friends?” Calypso asked curiously, wondering briefly if she would catch a glimpse of Percy amongst the demigods.

He nodded slowly, eyes riveted on the image. “They’re preparing for war.”

“Against whom?”

“Look,” he said, and the screen changed to show a different set of demigods. Romans. “I’ve seen that sign before,” Leo said, regarding the sign that read  _Goldsmith Winery_. “That’s not far from Camp Half-Blood.” The phalanx of demigods suddenly scattered as two hairy things danced between them, stealing their weapons and cutting their belts. Leo grinned. “Those beautiful little troublemakers! They kept their promise.”

She leaned in to observe them. “Cousins of yours?”

“Ha, ha, ha, no. Couple of dwarfs I met in Bologna. I sent them to slow down the Romans, and they’re doing it.” He sounded proud.

“But for how long?” Calypso wondered out loud. The Romans couldn’t be that easily distracted. They would eventually strike down hard on the Greek forces.

Leo didn’t answer. Instead, he watched the screen change with such intensity that it was then that Calypso started to believe that he wasn’t just some random demigod mistake. He was a hero in his own way.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Leo said when he saw the golden eagle on a pole that a pale, scrawny demigod held in his hands.

“A Roman standard,” Calypso observed.

“Yeah. And this one shoots lightning, according to Percy.”

There was an awkward pause the moment he said his name. Of course Percy was involved in this somehow. Calypso couldn’t help the sadness that filled her heart when she heard his name. She had bottled it up for ages, and now it was rearing its head again while she attempted to push it down. She saw the worried look that Leo sent her.

The image then showed a pretty dark-haired Roman riding a pegasus through a storm. She and her pegasus were heavily damaged, blood pouring from numerous wounds. Calypso glanced at Leo quickly to see his reaction. He look horrified but stared at the screen without saying much until a gryphon dived toward the pair and raked its claws across the pegasus’ ribs. Three  _venti_ appeared seconds later, and the girl cried a defiant war cry before charging straight at them. The mirror flickered and went dark.

“No!” Leo yelled, banging the mirror with such desperate violence that it surprised Calypso. “No, not now. Show me what happens! Calypso, can you sing again or something?”

Calypso suddenly realized that the girl was probably someone very important to him, and that made a churn of emotions stir angrily within her. “I suppose that if your girlfriend? Your Penelope? Your Elizabeth? Your Annabeth?” Calypso wasn’t sure why she was feeling so bitter about this. After all, she wasn’t in love with him and would  _never_  be.

Leo looked utterly bewildered. “What? That’s Reyna.”  _Great, another name to add to the list._  ”She’s not my girlfriend! I need to see more! I need—”

And the ground rumbled with echo of the word.  _NEED. NEED is an overused word._

Leo stumbled, and a humanoid figure emerged from the sand. It didn’t take much for Calypso to recognize it as Mother Earth: Gaea herself. If this demigod warranted a visit from Mother Earth, then he surely was an important hero.  _You want to live. You want to join your friends. But you do not_ need _this, my poor boy. It would make no difference. Your friends will die, regardless._

The familiar way that Gaea was speaking to Leo sent shivers down Calypso’s spine. Leo growled at the goddess before him. “What I  _don’t_ need,” he began bravely, “is more lies from you, Dirt Face.” Calypso was surprised at Leo’s audacity, but Gaea didn’t seem angry or shocked that he would regard her that way at all. “You told me my great-granddad died in the 1960s. Wrong! You told me I couldn’t save my friends in Rome. Wrong! You told me a lot of things.”

Gaea laughed softly at him, and Calypso could understand why. To her, he was nothing more than an insolent boy clinging to his own denial and hope.  _I tried to help you make better choices. You could have saved yourself. But you have defied me at every step. You built your ship. You joined that foolish quest. Now you are trapped here, helpless, while the mortal world dies._

Flames burst from Leo’s hands as he glared at the goddess. Calypso knew this song and dance. The goddess was trying to get Leo worked up, distracted. From the sound of it, she had visited him often, and he had faced her too many times alone. She placed her hand tentatively on his shoulder, hoping to calm him somehow. It was time for him to have someone else to step in and help him against her.

“Gaea,” she said sternly. “You are not welcome.”

_Ah Calypso. Still here, I see, despite the gods’ promises. Why do you think that is, my dear grandchild? Are the Olympians being spiteful, leaving you with no company except this undergrown fool? Or have they simple forgotten you, because you are not worth their time?_

Gaea was trying to work her way into the bitterness of her heart, she knew it. Instead of reacting harshly with emotions, she forced herself to be calm and stare straight through Gaea as if she weren’t there at all.  _Yes, the Olympians are faithless. They do not give second chances. Why do you hold out hope? You supported your father, Atlas, in his great war. You knew that the gods must be destroyed. Why do you hesitate now? I offer you a chance that Zeus would never give you._

No, she wasn’t. “Where were you these last three thousand years? If you are so concerned with my fate, why do you visit me only now?”

_The earth is slow to wake. War comes in its own time. But do not think it will pass you by on Ogygia. When I remake the world, this prison will be destroyed as well._

“Ogygia destroyed?” Calypso said, shaking her head. As much as she had hated Ogygia at first, she had grown to love it over time. She couldn’t imagine leaving Ogygia forever to live in a strange new world.

_You do not have to be here when it happens. Join me now. Kill this boy. Spill his blood upon the earth, and help me to wake. I will free you and grant you any wish. Freedom. Revenge against the gods. Even a prize. Would you still have the demigod Percy Jackson? I will spare him for you. I will raise him from Tartarus. He will be yours to punish or love, as you choose. Only kill this trespassing boy. Show your loyalty._

To most, the decisions would have been easy. Leo would have his entrails spilled on the ground within seconds. But Gaea had misjudged her. She didn’t want Ogygia to be forever destroyed. She didn’t want freedom and revenge against the gods if it meant killing and warring. And while she was bitter about Percy, he belonged with Annabeth. He loved her with all his heart, and Calypso didn’t hold heroes in her island against their choice (at least not anymore since Odysseus). She had let Percy go, even though he now was stuck in Tartarus according to the goddess because he didn’t stay. Leo was annoying, but she wasn’t going to kill him. She wasn’t a person who killed the demigods that landed on her island.

Calypso thrust her hand out in a three-fingered Ancient Greek gesture against evil. “This is not my prison, Grandmother. It is my home. And  _you_ are the trespasser.” With that, the wind ripped across Gaea’s temporary sand form, scattering her into bits.

It was silent, and she allowed herself to look at Leo. His eyes were wide, and he swallowed nervously. “Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but you didn’t kill me.” He paused. “Are you crazy?”

Calypso couldn’t get the image of Gaea taunting both of them out of her mind. She was sure Percy was in Tartarus because of Gaea, somehow. Her Grandmother was cruel with her negotiations. “You friends must need you, or else Gaea would not ask for your death.” She had underestimated his importance with her own piousness.

“I—uh, yeah. I guess,” he said, not sounding very sure of himself. She had never met a demigod who’s self-esteem was low. Percy was modest, but Leo seemed as if he had been deemed inferior all his life and was trying to prove everyone wrong, and Calypso felt terrible for calling him a mistake in the first place.

“Then we have work to do. We must get you back to your ship.”

* * *

 

Calypso collected enough supplies to last Leo a week within a day. The second day, she wove a sail and made ropes. By the time she was done, she asked Leo if he needed help. There was something different about wanting to build this ship off the island now. Instead of simply just wanting Leo off the island, she wanted him to save the world—along with Percy. Gaea could not be allowed to continue.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were anxious to get rid of me,” Leo responded.

She considered it. “That’s a bonus.” Since starting the project, she had slipped into the more practical clothing of the modern age. It was actually comfortable, despite its unstylish taste. She’d tied her hair back now. Calypso noticed that Leo was staring at her like a startled animal as he took in her appearance. It was a little adorable, if she was being one hundred and twenty percent honest. “So?”

Leo blinked. “So...what?” He seemed confused for a second. Sometimes, Calypso could hardly believe that Gaea thought he was a threat to her plans for taking over the world.

“So can I help?” she asked, nodding at the machinery. “How is it coming?”

“Oh,” Leo said, seeming surprised that she was even talking about it in the first place. “Uh, I’m good here. I guess. If I can wire this thing up to the boat, I should be able to navigate back to the world.” Calypso noticed that he always looked more sure of himself when he was talking about machines. She wondered what it was like to be him. Most heroes flaunted their buff strength and skills. Leo hid behind fire and machinery. He was an unusual sort of hero.

“Now all you need is a boat,” Calypso said, thinking about the raft. She had figured out that the raft only appeared for demigods she was in love with when it didn’t arrive right away for Leo. She wasn’t sure if it would be easier if she forced herself to fall in love with him and then called the raft or just built one with him.

“What Gaea said...,” he began hesitantly, “about you getting off this island. Would you want to try it?”

At first, Calypso didn’t fully understand the question. “What do you mean?”

“Well...I’m not saying it would be fun having you along, always complaining and glaring at me and stuff. But I suppose I could stand it, if you wanted to try.”

Oh.  _Oh._ That was incredibly,  _incredibly_ sweet of him to offer. Though Leo was an annoying demigod that got on her nerves most of the time, he really was starting to grow on her—like a friend of course. Because if Gaea or her minions sent him here, he actually  _was_ a mistake. She didn’t need to fall in love with him. She wasn’t supposed to anyway.

“How noble,” she muttered to herself. “But no, Leo. If I tried to come with you, your tiny chance of escape would be no chance at all. The gods have placed ancient magic on this island to keep me here. A hero can leave. I cannot. The most important thing is getting you free so you can stop Gaea.” She paused and realized how caring that sounded. “Not that I care what happens to you,” Calypso added in quickly, because Leo was not someone she would fall in love with. “But the world’s fate is at stake.” Of course, it was at stake during Percy’s time too, but...

“Why would you care about that? I mean, after being away from the world for so long?” Leo questioned.

For a moment, Calypso’s heart pounded quickly in her chest before she was finally able to control it again. “I suppose I don’t like being told what to do—by Gaea or anyone else. As much as I hate the gods sometimes, over the past three millennia I’ve come to see that they’re better than the Titans. They’re  _definitely_ better than the giants. At least the gods kept in touch. And your father, Hephaestsus, has often visited. He is a good person.” Just the way she knew Leo was a good person. “Now, how can I help?”

“Oh. You know that flameproof cloth? You think you could make me a little bag of that fabric?” Leo finally asked, a thoughtful look in his eyes. He described the dimensions of the cloth to her.

“That will only take minutes. Will it help on your quest?”

“Yeah,” Leo said, nodding, that faraway look in his eyes. “It might save a life. And, um, could you chip off a little piece of crystal from your cave. I don’t need much.”

A crystal from her cave? She frowned, pondering its importance. “That’s an odd request.”

“Humour me,” Leo said, smiling slightly.

“All right. Consider it done. I’ll make the fireproof pouch tonight at the loom, when I’ve cleaned up. But what can I do now, while my hands are dirty?” She held up her grimy fingers, and Leo grinned at the sight of it.

“Well, you could twist some more bronze coils. But that’s kind of specialized—”

She sat beside him on the bench and began to work on the wiring. It was easier than she expected it to be, and she could understand why Leo loved working with machines—besides him being Hephaestus’ song of course. “Just like weaving,” she said to break the silence. “This isn’t so hard.”

“Huh,” Leo said, even though he looked throughly impressed with her skill. “Well, if you ever get off this island and want a job, let me know. You’re not a total klutz.”

A smirk made its way involuntarily to her lips. Leo had that effect on her. “A job, eh? Making things in your forge?”

“Nah, we could start our own shop,” he said easily. She felt the way her heart jolted when he said ‘we’. “Leo and Calypso’s Garage: Auto Repair and Mechanical Monsters.”

She smiled at his words. “Fresh fruits and vegetables.”

“Cider and stew,” he added cheerfully. “We could even provide entertainment. You could sing and I could like, randomly burst into flames.”

For some reason, that made her laugh. It was the first time in years that she had actually laughed, which was a little sad. But Leo just brought out that side in her, which she actually really liked.

“See,” he offered a little quietly, with a bashful smile, “I’m funny.”

Calypso managed to remove the smile. Her heart beat faster just by looking at him. “You are  _not_ funny. Now, get back to work, or no cider and stew,” she said in a mock-stern voice.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, following her example. They fell into a comfortable silence, if not punctuated by the quick stuttering beats of Calypso’s heart.

* * *

 

They were good partners together. They worked in perfect tandem and they seemed to understand each other even without words.

Sometimes Leo would tell Calypso stories from Camp. He told her about his bronze dragon, Festus and the  _Argo II_. He told her about Khione throwing him off the ship right before he landed on the island. She wrinkled her nose at that. She had never really liked Khione, and now she had someone to actually blame for throwing this demigod on Ogygia. Or maybe Calypso could thank her, because Leo had really begun to grow on her.

And much to Calypso’s surprised, she loved his stories more than she would like to admit.

Or maybe, she just liked Leo Valdez in general.

* * *

 

It was two nights later did she figure out everything. Why she was still cursed. Why every hero left her. Why she was still going to be alone on Ogygia, after her fourth hero. Why her heart skipped a beat every time she was around Leo.

The guidance console they had made was finally finished and they sat at the bench while they ate a picnic dinner together in the moonlight. It was terribly romantic, if Calypso thought about it, but she managed to shift her thoughts to machines instead. She was beginning to understand Hephaestus and his children. You could always rely on machines to be there.

“All we need now is a boat,” Calypso said. She watched Leo’s response to this. For some reason, she didn’t want him to leave just yet, but she knew it was coming eventually.

Leo nodded. “I can start chopping wood into boards tomorrow. Few days, we’ll have enough for a small hull.”

“You’ve made a ship before. Your  _Argo II_.” He nodded again in confirmation. “So how long until you sail?” Calypso asked, trying to keep her emotions separated from the question. Leo was a great friend, and she would be sad to see him go.

“Uh, not sure. Another week?” It wasn’t Calypso’s imagination. He looked a little sad to go too.

To push her attention away from her own throbbing heart, she ran her fingers across the circuit board they had worked so hard to make. “This took so long to make,” she managed.

“You can’t rush perfection,” Leo said quietly.

She smiled. Leo wasn’t the boisterous demigod she expected him to be in the beginning. “Yes, but will it work?”

“Getting out, no problem. But to get back I’ll need Festus and—”

She wasn’t sure if she heard him right. Maybe it was a figment of her own desperation to not be alone. Leo did not say that. He wouldn’t say that. No one ever said that. “ _What?_ ”

Leo blinked at her. “Festus. My bronze dragon. Once I figure out how to rebuild him, I’ll—”

“You told me about Festus,” Calypso reminded him. “But what do you mean  _get back?_ ”

At her demanding tone, Leo grinned nervously that made Calypso’s heart skip a beat. “Well...to get back here, duh. I’m sure I said that.” He was covering it up with humour. That was what Leo always did when things got a little nerve-wracking for him.

“You most definitely did not,” Calypso said, barely able to believe her ears. Here he was, saying that he would come back for her. She couldn’t believe it. He was the first hero to say that to her with such conviction. Her heartbeat roared in her ears, but she forced herself to remain calm.

“I’m not gonna leave you here! After you helped me and everything? Of course I’m coming back. Once I rebuild Festus, he’ll be able to handle an improved guidance system. There’s this astrolabe that I, uh...” He paused. “...that I found in Bologna. Anyway, I think with that crystal you gave me—”

“You can’t come back,” she insisted weakly.

Leo looked at her with wide eyes, disappointment growing in them. “Because I’m not welcome?” he asked quietly, his voice small.

And in that moment, Calypso wanted him more than she had ever wanted Odysseus, or Drake, or Percy.

“Because you  _can’t_ ,” she managed without choking up. “It’s impossible. No man finds Ogygia twice. That is the rule.”

He rolled his eyes. In denial again. Why was he so persistent? It was breaking Calypso apart bit by bit. “Yeah, well you might’ve noticed I’m not good at following rules. I’m coming back here with my dragon, and we’ll spring you. Take you wherever you want to go. It’s only fair.”

“Fair...” That word was near foreign in her vocabulary. The gods didn’t believe in fairness. Calypso didn’t get any fairness. But this demigod right here was willing to offer that to her, even though he had only known her for a few days or so. He would never come back no matter how hard he tried, Calypso knew that. But Leo was just so  _good_ that it broke her heart just to have him sitting beside him in the moonlight, talking about and wishing for the impossible.

He sensed the tension in the air. “You didn’t really think that I could start Leo and Calypso’s Auto Repair without Calypso, did you? I can’t make cider and stew, and I _sure_  can’t sing.” It was meant to be humourous, but there was just something so painfully raw in those words that had Calypso on the verge of tears. “Well, anyway, tomorrow I’ll start on the lumber. And in a few days...” He trailed off suddenly, which was uncharacteristic of him to do when he was talking about stuff like this. She glanced in the direction he was looking at and saw the raft silhouetted against the night sky.

Calypso stood up immediately. “Hurry!” she said, grabbing supply bags and running to the raft. “I don’t know how long it will stay!”

“But...,” came Leo’s hesitant voice.

But she wasn’t just running toward the raft—she was running away from Leo and her own uncontrollable emotions.

* * *

 

It was silly, really.

She’d only known Leo for a week or so at the most. He was an accident. She wouldn’t fall in love with him. Leo was a scrawny demigod whose attitude problem got on her nerves.

But...

And in that moment, she understood.

* * *

 

“That’s the magic raft?” Leo asked, like he had hoped a giant ship would have appeared instead. Or maybe because he hoped that it wasn’t so that he could stay a few more days with Calypso. Or that was just Calypso’s wishful thinking.

“Duh! It  _might_ work like it’s supposed to and take you where you want to go. But we can’t be sure. The island’s magic is obviously unstable. You must rig up your guidance device to navigate.” She was becoming like Leo now—distracting herself from her own emotions by immersing herself in work and technicalities. She grabbed the console and ran toward the raft. Leo and Calypso spent the next few minutes quickly preparing the raft with their supplies in silence only broken by the sound of waves crashing onto the island.

They didn’t need to talk about who would do what. They worked in perfect harmony, and Calypso was amazed at this. Finally, Leo hit the buttons on the sphere he had first landed on the island with. He muttered a quick prayer to his father, and the console came to life. The sails turned, and the raft began to strain to reach the waters.

“Go,” Calypso managed.

* * *

 

Because all those heroes were the same variation of her own dreams: handsome, serious, strong, and heroic at sight. It was the typical heroes that could be spotted from a mile away. Calypso had labelled that as the only heroes she would ever fall in love with. Everybody else was no one compared to them.

Then Leo came, and he was none of that. He was handsome in his own way, but not the typical chiselled Greek perfection. Leo was rarely ever serious when not talking about machinery. He was a scrawny demigod with boyish looks. And he looked far from heroic when he landed on her island in a blast of fire.

No, the heroes that Calypso had resigned herself to were the sons of gods who radiated power. Odysseus was a son of Zeus. Drake was a son of Ares. And Percy was a son of Poseidon. But Leo wasn’t that. He wasn’t any of that. He didn’t have any of the ‘right’ qualities that Calypso looked for when she fell in love. Leo should have been wrong for her.

But were those right reasons for falling in love right in the first place?

She didn’t know anymore.

* * *

 

“The raft finally got here,” Leo said, his voice distant while he stared at her with those brown eyes of his.

Calypso snorted. Her throat was closing up, and tears were pressing against her eyelids. In the beginning, she didn’t think she would feel this way when he finally left. But now here she was, wishing that he didn’t have to go at all. “You just noticed?” Leo’s own personality quirks were rubbing off her. She was hiding her pain behind false humour.

Leo seemed to be thinking hard. “But if it only shows up for guys you like—”

“Don’t push your luck, Leo Valdez,” she said, saying his full name out loud. “I  _still_ hate you.” But in her heart, she knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t true at all. In fact, it was opposite of the truth that she wasn’t willing to admit. Because if she did, it would destroy her more than when Odysseus left.

Leo blinked in surprise. “Okay,” he said, like he knew the truth behind her words.

“And you are  _not_ coming back here. So don’t give me any empty promises.” If he kept promising, she would kepe hoping. It would be an neverending cycle of pain, and Calypso would rather have a clean break than drag it through the centuries until Hephaestus or some other god decided to take pity and show up to tell Calypso that Leo was dead.

Leo still wasn’t deterred. He never was. “How about a  _full_ promise? Because I’m definitely—” She didn’t want to hear it. It hurt too much. Leo was absolutely comprised of such  _goodness_ that Calypso couldn’t help herself.

She grabbed his face and pulled him toward her for a kiss. It was a brief, chaste touch on the lips, but it still managed to leave Calypso breathless. She felt sparks from where their lips met, and she felt his smooth skin beneath her hands. She would have stayed there forever if she could.

She pulled herself away. “That didn’t happen.” She wasn’t just telling Leo this—she was telling herself. No way did she kiss Leo. She was just hoping for the impossible here.

“Okay,” Leo said, sounded dazed and lovestruck.

“Get out of here.”

“Okay,” he said again, still staring at her like she was the reason for his existence.

She had hoped that he would say something more, something like ‘I won’t leave without you’, but Calypso knew that would never happen. It was then that she realized tears were freely streaming down her face now, and nothing had ever hurt  _this_ much.

She got off the raft, wiping the tears from her cheeks and running back toward her cave where she could hope to forget this encounter had ever happened.

But she knew she wouldn’t ever forget Leo Valdez, and his cheeky attitude, and his beautiful,  _beautiful_ heart.

* * *

 

When she first saw Leo, she immediately knew he wasn’t right for her. He was an accident. A mistake. Nothing.

And again and again, he proved her wrong. It was that moment underneath the stars when their lips touched for the first (and last) time did Calypso realize something.

She always fell in love at first sight—that was part of her curse. But with Leo, the love had been so gradual that she didn’t realize she was in love until he was leaving. And then everything made sense—why everyone else had left without much thought about her. Why Leo seemed to be different.

He  _wasn’t_ that typical hero that Calypso had resigned herself to falling in love with. He  _didn’t_ have his other half to return to. He was sarcastic, snappy, and derisive. He was  _different_ in all ways possible. He didn’t look the part of a hero, but he played the part of one.

Throughout the millenniums spent on Ogygia, Calypso had unknowingly comprised a list of attributes in which she would fall in love with. It was all very logical and strict, which powered the curse. The curse took these attributes and twisted it with the  _feeling_ of being in love, even when she wasn’t truly. Calypso was just lonely, and the curse took advantage of this. With Leo, rationality had been thrown away, and she just  _felt felt felt._ Nothing was logical with him despite its irony. The curse had nothing to hold onto, so it slipped away when Leo was mentioned.

It was then that she finally realized that all the right reasons for falling in love were wrong all along, and Leo Valdez was the hero who had shown her another way, perhaps the hero she had been waiting for all along.

And now he, too, was gone.

* * *

 

She sat by the eight feet deep crater that Leo’s sphere had left when he landed on the island. It was still here, and Calypso had wanted to bury it up at first but she hadn’t the time to do so. Now she wanted it here forever.

Ogygia was Calypso, and the crater was Leo. While heroes came and went on Ogygia, Leo had left his mark. She was sure of it.

And that was when she admitted the truth to no one but the invisible servants and the night wind:

“I am in love with Leo Valdez.”

 _As his raft skimmed over the water, taking him back to the mortal world, he understood a line from the Prophecy better—_ an oath to keep with a final breath.

_He understood how dangerous oaths could be. But Leo didn’t care._

_“I’m coming back for you, Calypso,” he said to the night wind. “I swear it on the River Styx.”_

_-The House of Hades pg. 404_

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel planned, but I have not read the final book yet so...
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://ensemble-of-dolphins.tumblr.com)


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